Vegan Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

Soft biscuits, creamy country gravy, and yummy breakfast sausage!  And all VEGAN!

It's the Saturday before the first week of school.  And I'm thinking about the teacher I hope to be this year.  I've been thinking about compassion and leadership and equality.  In a classroom, there has to be leadership; and the teacher has to be the leader.  But I've been playing with the idea that leadership isn't the same thing as importance.  The teacher is no more important than the student.  It might not seem like a 'vegan" idea but my thinking began with the vegan diet.  Am I more more important than the other living organisms on this planet?  Do my needs outweigh their lives?  No!  Is the person who makes more money more important than the person who doesn't make that much money?  No!  Is the person with more education more important than the person with less education? No!  I think this way of thinking changes the way I live my life and the way I treat others.  In means that everyone deserves the same respect, whether you are the superintendent, the principal, the teacher, the janitor, or the students. 

And speaking of equally important, when making biscuits and gravy, every part is equally important.  You need a nice fluffy biscuit, like my version of sour cream biscuits.  But you also need a nice creamy gravy with big bites of sage-y sausage .  I've used the Country Gravy Recipe from the New Start Cook Book as my base and then made changes and additions to make it perfect for us.

 Biscuits and Sausage Gravy

(Based on Country-Style Gravy from NEWSTART Lifestyle Cookbook)

2 cups hot water

½ cup clean, raw cashews

3 TB cornstarch or arrowroot

2 TB Bragg liquid Aminos

2 teaspoons onion powder

1 teaspoon yeast flakes

½ teaspoon salt (optional)

½ teaspoon Mrs. Dash Table blend

¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper (or more to taste)

1 cup plain vegan milk (I used almond milk)

¼ cup finely diced onion

2 TB vegan margarine

1 TB flour

1 Roll of Gimme Lean Sausage

1 Recipe of Vegan Sour Cream Biscuits

Directions:

1)   Make 4 large patties using the entire roll of Gimme Lean Sausage.  Bake in 375-degree oven for about 15 minutes while preparing biscuits.

2)   Prepare sour cream biscuits.  Remove sausages and place biscuits in oven.  Allow sausages to cool.

3)   Process cashews in about 1 cup of the hot water in a blender until very smooth.  Add additional cup of water, cornstarch, Aminos, onion powder, yeast, salt, Mrs. Dash blend, and pepper and continue blending.  Add in 1 cup plain vegan milk and blend until very smooth. 

4)   Sauté minced onion in 2 TB vegan margarine in large frying pan until onions are soft and translucent.  Add 1 TB flour and cook for a minute or two.

5)   Pour blended gravy from blender into pan with onion and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Cook until thickened. Crumble sausage patties and add to gravy.

6)   Biscuits should be done.  Take them out of the oven so the smell of freshly baked biscuits wafts throughout the house

Putting It All Together

These are BIG biscuits!

Step 1:  Place big biscuit on plate!

Split biscuit so the gravy can soak into all the nooks and crannies.

Cover with creamy sausage gravy.
Be generous - It's biscuits and gravy!
It isn't diet food.

And the great thing about this sausage gravy - an intelligent pig did not have to give her/his life so I could eat a yummy breakfast.

One of the pig's at Farm Sanctuary in Orland California that I visited this summer.
Pigs are actually very intelligent animals with long memories.
Pigs are also very clean, although this gal had been cooling in the mud
because it was nearly 100 degrees on the day we visited.